I had a lot planned for last week. Most
of those plans didn't get done. However, a whole lot of different
things were accomplished. All of this was happening while I was
really under the weather. It wasn't the flu. It was some sort of
stomach/intestinal thing. All of the lovely food I made last Sunday
was no longer a good plan (high fiber and spice). I had to make a vat
of chicken stock and revert back to one of my post hospital diets for
a while. The nice thing about that was that I had made a big batch of
brioche dough. I use a method from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day www.artisanbreadinfive.com/
. The recipes require no kneading and can be kept in the fridge for
up to a week. The five minutes comes from the amount of time it takes
to prepare the dough for baking. It's really nice to have fresh bread
to go with that soup. And toward the end of the week, I had enough of
this sweet, rich dough to make some decadent cinnamon rolls. That
kind of recuperative menu almost made up for the near debilitating
fatigue. I spent a lot of time zonked out on the sofa. Thus, I had to
cancel the shoot for Cook Like a Uke, and I barely got done any
editing Sean Hepburn Ferrer's interview for The Secret Cancer. When I
did get out for the Farmers Market and Happy Hour at the Culver
Hotel, I ended up drinking green tea. Admittedly, I did have martinis
but nowhere near what I usually have. And I paid for the ones I had.
But I digress. A lot of stuff got done despite this set back. Basic
details will be in the Update section. For complete details, I'll be
referring you to the other blogs. Sorry.
By the way, for more photos from this
week's happenings, go to this link: http://dlwarner.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_20.html .
Verisimilitude
I had some very nice comments on my
work this week. On the site, All Romance, where I am a bestseller
(yes, I like saying that), a reader wrote that she enjoyed all of my
work. On a different site, a reader said 'just read all of her work.'
That was mighty nice. Yet the most fascinating and fun comments have
been about the realism I've managed to put into my books. A reader
who went to see Zero Dark Thirty said that the Seal Team Six in that
film reminded her of Falcon Squad from the Soldiers' books. I had
done some research on special forces units in general. We worked with
one on Demon Under Glass. He came to our attention after commenting
that it took longer to strangle a man than we shot in one scene. This
formidable crew guy found film far more peaceful than the military
(geez, he must have had a hard time as a soldier to think that). Yet,
he was really affable, laid back and funny in a very twisted way. The
actor who played Rik in the short film version of the Soldiers book
actually was in such a unit as well. Why do they drift toward film.
Beyond that, I interview others who were in a unit or were close to
people who were. The freedom about hairstyles and operating outside
of protocol were not made from whole cloth. I was very pleased that
someone saw my guys in characters that were even closer to the real
thing. I was asked if the menu I go into loving detail about in
Ensnared is real. The answer is yes. All food I mention in my books
are dishes I've had. Often times, I've made them as well. Food is an
excellent way to ground even the most far flung of fantasies in
reality. I am still working on a cookbook 'written' by Vincent
Greven. The current release date is in time for the Writers Romance and Rainbows 2013 Book Fair. Yes, it has a blog now. We'll see.
I'm Walkin' (Yes, Indeed)
I am very pleased and honored to be
associated with the lovely people who run Pseudomyxoma Survivor
https://www.justgiving.com/pseudomyxomasurvivor
, a charity founded by an incredibly brave survivor of PMP. On
Saturday, I was invited to join a fund raising effort on behalf of
that group that is tied to the London Marathon. No, I'm not flying to
London to do a Marathon. If I were flying to London, it would be to
go on an epic pub crawl. And I am in no shape to run a marathon other
than in a cab. The challenge is to walk or run or crawl the distance
of a marathon by the date of the London Marathon on April 21, 2013.
We'll raise money as well as support the people running in the
marathon for PMP Survivors. Our team, PMP Los Angeles is Jon, me and
Craig (who is also our coach) so far. I'm hoping to have more of my
peeps here join us. And you don't have to be in LA to join our team!
You can walk or run anywhere. We'll be putting up a schedule in a few
days of when and how much we plan to walk. We hope you will
contribute to our cause. Any amount will do. The funds go directly to
PMP survivors. Here is our page:
http://www.justgiving.com/teams/pmpmarathonchallenge
. Let's raise some bucks and awareness for this cause. Today is the
20 year anniversary of Audrey Hepburn's death and still very few know
about this illness. It is often tragically misdiagnosed. That nearly
did me in. This is a cause that is extremely important to me. Those
who join who aren't in LA will be treated to a motivational speech by
coach Craig via the interwebs.
Updates
The Demonspawn fund raising campaign is
over. We fell well short of our optimum goal, but that does not mean
that there won't be a web series. For details on where everything
stands, check out the blog later today (evening-ish) on this link:
http://http://demonspawntales.blogspot.com/
. Meanwhile, things are poppin' in the yaoi world. My news page on
Facebook has had it's first exclusive interview and is growing by the
hundreds each day. The writing is going well, too. I'm back on track
with A Soldier's Destiny and making headway on one of my most hard
core yaoi pieces for Full Metal Orgasm E-zine. You can catch on all
of this later tonight or tomorrow at http://sybpressyaoi.com
.
Stay tuned.
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